1. Field of the Invention
The invention is related to the field of heat exchangers for cooling or heating highly viscous, especially intrinsically viscous, free-flowing substances with rod-shaped or tabular cooling or heating elements built in a straight flow-through area of the free-flowing substance to be cooled or heated.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The special flow behaviour of pasty, highly viscous liquids, especially of intrinsically viscous free-flowing substances, causes problems which can not be solved in customary plate or tube heat exchangers.
The use of single-tube heat exchangers is also known in which an even flow is achieved, but in which enormous pressure losses of up to 80 bar result due to the requisite long tube lengths.
A heat exchanger for highly viscous, especially intrinsically viscous, free-flowing substances is also known in which the flow-through area for the substance to be cooled or heated is subdivided by baffles into several chambers which communicate with each other and a wave-like flow with changes of direction of 180.degree. per change is imposed in this manner on the substance flowing through. Although the conditions of flow in this heat exchanger are considerably better than they are in the other two known constructions, the deflection points with their change of direction of 180.degree. often cause problems when the heat exchanger runs in neutral and when it is cleaned.
The present invention has the task of creating a heat exchanger which is suitable for highly viscous, especially intrinsically viscous, free-flowing substances and which does not have the above-mentioned disadvantages of the previously known heat exchangers, that is, in which the flow goes evenly around all cooling or heating elements, a minimum pressure loss occurs, no problems appear when it runs in neutral and which is very easy to clean.